I felt a bit out of place for Christmas anecdotes until this year. I made my way to lovely Falmouth in lovely Cornwall to be with my lovely lady and her parents for the Christmas break. This year, I decided to go all out. Several presents were food-related and home made and I decided to throw myself in and make a Christmas Pudding.

This was no mean feat, especially when making it to the Nigella Christmas recipe which required 8 hours of steaming, five at the time of mixing the ingredients and three on Christmas Day. Proudly clutching my home made Christmas Pudding on the 22nd December, I put it inside my luggage and prepared for a 7hr trip to the south-west peninsula. It’s usually five hours, but have three 40 minute stopovers: one at Westbury, one at Exeter and one at Truro, extended it a little more.

My blasted Christmas Pudding obviously got fed up with Great Western Railway, or perhaps it really liked the coastal view of the stretch between Exeter and Dawlish, because at that point it decided to make a run for it. With great force and still inside my rucksack, it flew off of the overhead hold and piled itself onto my head in a bold escape attempt. It hit me on the front of my skull on the left hand side and landed on the floor.

Surprised, it took me a moment to realise what had landed on my head. Avoiding the desire to shout out in agony (because Christmas puddings are bloody heavy even without the pyrex bowl in which it had presumably conspired to make its escape attempt) I left it to the person across the aisle to utter the expletives that I dare not. “Shit mate, that looked heavy. Are you ok?”

“Uh, yeah I think so. That was my Christmas Pudding I think” which elicited only chuckles. I already have a bump on my head and it f***ing stings so I touch it gingerly. First thing I do after that, obviously, is retrieve the rucksack. The sound of clinking suggests that the pyrex bowl has broken. I check it. Yes, it’s broken. Not a great start as moments later I realise I had forgotten to pick up one last present.

Not ideal. The romantic evening we’d had planned in the accommodation was rudely interrupted by what could now be considered emergency surgery, the immediate extraction of broken glass from a Christmas Pudding and hoping that it wasn’t a complete disaster.

We must have spent up to two hours gingerly taking away the glass to see whether the pudding was salvageable. This was my first Christmas Pudding, so I was hoping it wouldn’t have to go in the bin. There was one bad side where the glass had shattered (presumably the part that had connected with my head). We took no chances and simply cut away the pudding from the broken fragments. For the larger bits, we carefully removed the glass, brushed it down wish tissue and picked out what might have been glass. In some cases it was actually damp suet thankfully.

After the surgery, we can report that both patients were doing well. I didn’t develop concussion and pudding was out of critical condition. We decided to remove more of the infected area and check on it the following day, giving it a good rinse. Looking rather sorry for itself, here it is!

I can report that the person violently attacked by the pudding is doing well. As for the pudding? It was very tasty.